


Compulsion

by unknowableroom_archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-02-20
Updated: 2007-02-20
Packaged: 2019-01-19 03:21:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12402045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unknowableroom_archivist/pseuds/unknowableroom_archivist
Summary: Not because she wants to but because she has to.  This is compulsion.  One Shot.





	Compulsion

**Author's Note:**

> Note from ChristyCorr, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Unknowable Room](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Unknowable_Room), a Harry Potter archive active from 2005-2016. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after May 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Unknowable Room collection profile](http://www.archiveofourown.org/collections/unknowableroom).

_Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to J.K Rowling.  I merely own the words below._

_A/N: Okay, another ambiguous fic; interpret how you will._

She runs.

The wind whips her in the face, her hair lashing her in the eyes.  But she doesn’t care.  As her clothes buffet her slim body she lets her pain, her anger, her sadness out on the world.

She runs.  Not because she wants to but because she has to.  She has to get away, even if just for a bit.  Because she knows that if she doesn’t she will drown – drown in all the things she doesn’t understand, but that are still there.  Drown in the suffering she sees all around her.  Drown in the potential of lives she has seen wasted.  Drown in her own emptiness.

                                                    ***

She plays.

Her fingers fly over the black and white keys that they know so well.  They caress the well-loved piano as the music floats around her like a shroud, protecting her from all the things outside her own little piece of world.  Here, in her childhood home, filled with memories and the music that she now makes, she is safe from the outside.  She doesn’t want to see outside.  Outside is a dark place.

She plays.  She plays to let worries escape her, to let peace in again.  Peace has deserted her, no longer her friend in her safe world.  Her happy world.  But the outside is creeping in again.  So she plays louder.  The music will keep her safe.  The music will protect her.  The music is her last defense.  Because when the music fails and deserts her as peace did, there will be nothing.

                                                    ***

She dances.

Her calm exterior betrays nothing of her broken apart core.  She glides gracefully, lying to the people all around her, showing them what they want to see.  What they want to see will keep them happy.  She doesn’t matter.

She dances.  As her body spins into a pirouette, she feels for the first time her body represent how she feels inside – she spins and spins.  Until the world is a blur and she cannot pick out a face in the crowd.  Until time seems to stand still and a second lasts an eternity.  Until the tears cannot escape the prison she has built up around them.  Until she loses balance.  What happens when she loses her balance inside? 


End file.
